Fight 4 Taste

An unexpected culinary journey It was an unexpected and unpredictable journey. For a guy who could cook less than a dozen things for the first half of my adult life, I discovered a wonderful gift. My cooking heroes have changed over the years. It makes sense. My launching point was the training wheels-like safety of the 20 years ago Food Network. Chefs like Rachael Ray, George Stella, Guy Fieri, and Tyler Florence? As I look back on this I cannot help but feel a wave of embarrassment. But this was the road that got me to where I am today, even though I’m not exactly quite sure where that is, although it is becoming obvious. I can tell you that my cooking heroes have certainly changed. At the top of my list, are June Xie, Stephanie Cmar, Adrienne Cheatham, and Anthony Bourdain just to start with. These are not cookie-cutter chefs, and perhaps in some definitions, not chefs at all. (Had to add this as June does not like being called a chef). 15 years ago there was definitely some excitem...

To  those who follow my Instagram and Facebook pages, the   fact that I have once again made dumplings, fried rice, lomein, or LA galbi might seem a little overplayed. So like the Steve Miller Band is YET AGAIN singing, the Joker on your local radio station. But before you think I might be playing it safe, although sometimes I am, please know that I am turning dials, taking notes, and learning from my mistakes and shortcomings.   Today, I need to marinate flanken-cut beef ribs for LA galbi. Fortunately, I have made this a few times. Sometimes it was so great it was difficult to think that it was me who made it. This usually was what I did, combined with cooking over a wood fire. I took notes too. So, today before I begin the long road of prepping I am looking back on these notes. I recall that Liz from Subversive Table said, “I added a can of Coca-Cola for good measure,    advice of a Korean American friend who swore by this sweet ingredient. The result? Everyon...

Flavor, blackouts and Memory Almost Full  Lately, I have been throwing myself into the very depths of understanding, the situational flavorings, and breaking free of using recipes. It would seem that as one chef put it, cooking from a recipe is no more than painting by numbers. I know in my heart, that my initial drive is something primal. I have to do it, I have to cook whatever that thing is that hits me like the fever. I’ve become powerless to resist. Suddenly I give in and I fall and keep falling. Then the wonderfulness happens. So, come on! I know who I am there, or at least, I’m knocking on the door. Thinking, analyzing, breathing, and tasting. Feeling the vibrations on the floor. The light breeze. It’s all there, all contributing. What it becomes is that taste that just may never happen again, and if you were here, you were here. You can never tell its story, you can never give it, sing it, or paint it. Maybe.   I know Poppy Crum how right you are. I am talking about a...

  Sunday. Changes for the weather ahead. I'm going camping today. Of course, the weather is about to change. If I am going to camp, it will rain...Say it again with me, IT WILL RAIN. I seriously am starting to think that if you could just send me to the drought-stricken areas around the globe and let me camp there, I can fix it for them.   I am doing this outing alone.  We don't usually ever do that, but I have not done anything at all this year.  No vacations, weekend getaways, nothing, just a slave to the dump truck loads of dirt that my yard desperately needs and broken cars and trees that need to come down and a few other things.  Donna got to go to Maine the week before, so it was her suggestion that I go, since one of our brand new cats was broke down.  She was staying home to take very good care of (we have gone through a lot of names for him) Leaf, Sorra, Tigger, Tarzan, but my favorite and I am fighting for it to stick is Roo. After forgettin...

  I always thought it would be easier living after the cats were gone. We were always saying that we were not going to do it again. Very smugly taking beautiful things for granted. Even Donna said, we just did not understand how exceptional they were. Lava's final cries in pain were of death itself, I just know it, and they were the most harrowing sound I have ever heard. It tears me to the core.  Doctor House was right though, there   is   no dignity in dying, we all do it alone and it's ugly and horrifically terrible. The only thing we can do is live with dignity.  Our daily numbness makes us not even do that so well. And in Goodbye, Farewell, Amen, there were light points of this and deep ones too. Even in hardship, we can take the good for granted. Hardship, well yes, it can have lasting effects. And that is on a chemical level. I heard a summary of societal decade disintegration. I know this all means something yet I am losing the drive to put the idea into...

 Yes, there are many hurdles ahead, but this is my declaration that I AM DOING THIS.  Appropriately so, I was at the Miracle Mile Listen Center (regional thrift store) and scored one of the most important books in the world to a professional chef, and what was to be my next printed acquisition on Amazon, The Flavor Bible, for one dollar!  This means I have the CIA official textbook, The New Professional Chef, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and now this one.  These are in the top 6 all-time required chef references.   In other news, I was had, sort of.  Let's just say, "I see cooking stuff"

 Yes, there are many hurdles ahead, but this is my declaration that I AM DOING THIS.  Appropriately so, I was at the Miracle Mile Listen Center (regional thrift store) and scored one of the most important books in the world to a professional chef, and what was to be my next printed acquisition on Amazon, The Flavor Bible, for one dollar!  This means I have the CIA official textbook, The New Professional Chef, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and now this one.  These are in the top 6 all-time required chef references.   In other news, I was had, sort of.  Let's just say, "I see cooking stuff"